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V 



THE WILL OF SONG 



WORKS BY PERCY MACKAYE 

PLAYS 

The Canterbury Pilgrims. A Comedy. 

Jeanne d'Arc. A Tragedy. 

Sappho and Phaon. A Tragedy. 

Fenris, the Wolf. A Tragedy. 

A Garland to Sylvia. A Dramatic Reverie. 

The Scarecrow. A Tragedy of the Ludicrous. 

Yankee Fantasies. Five One-Act Plays. 

Mater. An American Study in Comedy. 

Anti-Matrimony. A Satirical Comedy. 

To-MoRROW. A Play in Three Acts. 

A Thousand Years Ago. A Romance of the Orient. 

Washington. A Ballad Play. 

COMMUNITY DRAMAS 
Caliban. A Community Masque. 
Saint Louis. A Civic Masque. 
Sanctuary. A Bird Masque. 
The New Citizenship. A Civic Ritual. 
The Evergreen Tree. A Christmas Masque, 
The Roll Call. A Masque of the Red Cross. 
The Will of Song (with Harry Barnhart). 

OPERAS 
Sinbad, the Sailor. A Fantasy. 
The Immigrants. A Tragedy. 
The Canterbury Pilgrims. A Comedy. 
Rip Van Winkle. A Legend. 

POEMS 
The Sistine Eve, and Other Poems. 
Uriel, and Other Poems. 
Lincoln. A Centenary Ode. 
The Present Hour. Poems of War and Peace. 
Poems and Plays. In Two Volumes. 

ESSAYS 
The Playhouse and the Play. 
The Civic Theatre. 
A Substitute for War. 
Community Drama. An Interpretation. 

ALSO {As Editor) 
The Canterbury Tales. A Modern Rendering into 

Prose. 
The Modern Reader's Chaucer (with Professor 

J. S. P. Tatlock). 

AT ALL BOOKSELLERS 



THE WILL OF SONG 

A Dramatic Service 
of Community Singing 

DEVISED IN COOPERATION WITH 

HARRY BARNHART 

BY 

PERCY MACKAYE 



For Use as a Two Days' Song Festival 
in Two Parts 

PART I: SOUL OF EARTH 
PART II: SOUL OF LIGHT 



Cover Design by Claude Bragdon 



BONI AND LIVERIGHT 
New York 1919 






Copyright, 19 19, by 

Percy MacKaye and Harry Barnhart 

All Rights Reserved 

No performance of this work may be given without first 
obtaining permission to do so. Those desiring to obtain such 
permission should communicate with the Director of **The Will 
of Song/' New York Community Chorus, 130 East 22d Street, 
New York City, 



^:13 



©Cf.A536356 



DEDICATION 



The Garden of Song lay in the torpid landscape 
High walled about, trim-shorn, 

Shut away from the raucous wilds of a blatant America. 
An old exotic ivy gloomed on the gate-way 
Forbidding to little children and light-hearted old folks 
Who paused as they passed, to look in 

Where long-trodden paths were lined with respectable hedge- 
rows, 
Intricate, ornate, established, 
Geometric, escarped with rococo, 
Well watered by new rubber hose 
And graced by the well-painted motto: "Keep off the grass." 

The walls of the Garden of Song were edged with sharp glass 

To keep shrill gamins from climbing over and shouting 

To disturb the Elite in their highly professional practice; 

For beyond the walls, the landscape 

Lay parching with niggardly drought, 

SuUen, sordid, mujffled by monstrous machines, 

Except where, scrambling out of the cinders of coal-pits, 

Or deep from the city's canyons. 

The squealing merry-go-rounds and braying music halls 

Blazoned electric midjoiight and morbid noonday. 

The Garden of Song lay in the parching landscape 
Well walled and watered, sufficient unto its own. 
Till a puff of wind, a wind from the wide horizon, 
Blew out of the west 
Roughening the well-shorn hedgerows, 
Rumbling with low, far thunder. 

V 



DEDICATION 



But the walled-in Elite, absorbed in professional practice, 

Did not listen as yet to the murmuring heart of America 

Borne on the wind, for their bustling committees were busy 

Escorting from over-sea the ever-arriving MaestroSj 

Lodging them in gilded loggias 

To inculcate their systems — the illustrious 

Basso — Soprano — Tenor — ed — A Uo, 

So, in meticulous worship. 

They pursued undisturbed their highly professional practice, 

Till a gust of wind once more, and a cloud of the whirlwind, 

Crispened the torpid air. 

And the west sky darkened. 

And the ominous heart of America 

Murmured again more loud. 

And the first pelt drops came pattering 

Brisk on the pate of the tallest Maestro 

Who paused in his teaching, to put his professional hat on. 

And cried out: "Disciples, 

The weather is changing : I think we should raise our umbrellas ! " 

Then the thunder burst and the pouring tempest 

Loosed in the long-parched land a dormant fecundity 

Terrible in vigor. 

Beautiful with burgeoning desire; 

And there came — with a rushing together 

Of winds and of whirlwinds — 

With a cry of youth — a yearning, articulate, 

Harmonious clamor. 

Clamor unchained from the song-proud heart of a people — 

There came, on a cloud of fire, 

A Spirit — a Soul enormous, impassioned, serene, 

Chanting aloud from the whirlwind: 

"Sing! Sing! Let us sing! For our Lord is Song! 
Sing! Let us sing! For the life of the world — 
The love which begetteth our life, our Lord is Song! 
Our Lord, who leadeth us, is the heart of a child 
Which singeth aloud for joy of his being alive. 
For joy of his being together with all who live. 
Our Lord is He who maketh the desolate places 
Musical with rushing of waters, mingling together. 

vi 



DEDICATION 



Our Lord is He who shepherdeth all who are lonely, 

Yea, as a flock he maketh his millions one. 

Sing unto Him! Let us sing! For our Lord is Song! " 

Then a hush: and against the fiery heart of the cloud, 

The Spirit's shadow shone forth, stretching outward his arms, 

Enormous, impassioned, serene: 

Cave-man, he loomed, and Christ — stretching outward his arms, 

One moment husht — then made his choral sign: 

Instant, a sudden simlighit flooded the world; 

The pouring tempest was still'd; 

Beneath him the walls of the Garden of Song were revealed 

Rended, and widened, even unto the hills 

Of the wild horizon; 

And outward, upward, everywhere from the earth, 

Sprang from the cinders of coal-pits, 

Gleamed in the canyons of cities. 

Bloomed from the niggard, parching places of drought, 

Wild flowers — ^wild flowers ! 

Varied, unstinted, prolific — 

Till even the long-trodden paths, the respectable hedgerows, 

The trimmed, exotic shapes of the Garden were tangled 

With infinite native blooms 

Nested with choiring birds; 

And from them — even as a myriad fragrances of sound — 

Rose, to the mighty choral sign of the Spirit, 

Hearts, hearts of America, chanting in communion: 

''Our Lord is He who maketh the desolate places 
Musical with rushing of waters, mingling together. 
Sing! Sing! Let us sing! For our Lord is Song!" 



vu 



CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTORY 

PASS 

Dedication v 

Prefaces 

I. Harry Barnhart to Percy MacKaye xi 

II. Percy MacKaye to Harry Barnhart xiii 

Dramatis Personje xxii 

Time aito Place xxiii 

Ground Plan of Setting xxiv 

Elevation View of Setting xxvi 

TEXT OP ''THE WILL OF SONG" 

Prelude i 

ACTION I. "Ourselves" 3 

II. "Voices of the World" 8 

III. "Hunger and Bread OF Life" .... 12 

IV. "NoMoRE Will I Be Afraid" .... 14 
V. Spring 17 

VI. " O, I Will Chant Me a Happy Prayer " . 19 

VII. Play 22 

Vni. "Bread OF Life Has Quickened Me" . 24 

IX. Song 27 

Finale 28 

Ix 



CONTENTS 



PART II 

PAGE 

Prelude 31 

ACTION I. "We Grope Apart: Who Shall Unite 

Us?" 33 

II. Imagination 36 

III. "And God Said: *Let There be Light'" 37 

IV. "The Creation" (Part I) 40 

V. " Mine and Thine are Mingled in Ours " 41 

VI. "Nearer TO Thee" 44 

VII. Soul of Light 45 

VIII. "And Man Became A Living Soul" . . 47 

IX. "The Creation" (Parts II & III) ... 49 

X. "And There Was Light" 50 

Finale 52 

APPENDIX 

Musical Program and Notes 55 

By Harry Barnhart 

Setting for Production 60 

By Irving Pichel 

Program of the Orange Production 62 

Program of the Buffalo Production 67 



PREFACES 
I: Harry Barnhart to Percy MacKaye 

Dear Percy: 

When I came to you with my outline and general 
plans for a two days' spring festival, it was the call 
of a great thing which had come out of the heart 
of the people in the Oranges of New Jersey and 
Buffalo, N. Y., where there has developed a won- 
derful community festival spirit, highly creative in 
character, through the constant regular weekly 
rehearsal and '^ sings'' of the Community Choruses 
for the past three seasons, the year round, indoors 
and out of doors. 

A true yearning of the people of this kind is 
always satisfied, and it is the singing of the people, 
done in the proper way, that calls forth this lofty, 
creative impulse as nothing else can. This im- 
pulse is for an expression of a consciousness already 
awakened for neighborliness, friendliness, brother- 
liness, confidence in each other, a lifting of the 
soul that it may touch the higher spirits, making 
this consciousness tangible and within the practical 
grasp of everybody. 

The singing of the people seems to get at the 
soul of things and calls forth their higher will, 
which gives us the conception of ^'Soul of Earth," 
*'Soul of Light," '^The Will of Song," and those 
other eternal, metaphysical characters. People 
love to talk to their own souls because in this way 
we are led by our higher selves, through the em- 

xi 



PREFACE: I 



ployment of song and music, dance and play, color 
and light and all those wonderful things that are 
within our grasp, to make and develop a new fes- 
tival of the people. Then it is the yearning of the 
people that has created it. 

The poet, the musician, the leader, the mechanic, 
the contributor of money, the workers, all become, 
in this way, such glorified creators! 

The people asked the poet to speak, and you in 
a few days came forth with a great, new creative 
community drama called ^*The Will of Song." 
Within a fortnight in May, it had been produced 
by the Community Choruses of the Oranges and 
Buffalo, before great crowds, fifteen hundred 
people taking part in each place. 

Its effect was much like the parable of the loaves 
and fishes. The multitude came hungry, there 
was ample for all, and the people went away satis- 
fied with abundance to spare. 

The people are tired of arguing about and resur- 
recting the past. They are eager to chant the 
new laws of the future, and to sing the songs of a 
true brotherhood. 

In ''The Will of Song,'^ I feel that we have ac- 
cumulated and put into tangible expression, and 
released to the people, some of the most funda- 
mental principles of the socializing of man. The 
contribution can well be reckoned with as being 
of vital importance in determining the quality of 
the new social order that is fast coming upon us. 

It is not for us to feel, or allow others to feel, that 
we are the inspired artists, but rather to realize 
that it has been our humble privilege to serve the 
people, who themselves have been the creators, 

xii 



PREFACE: H 



Out of long years of humbly serving the people, 
and inspiring them in song, has come this most 
beautiful dramatic service through song. 

I am grateful for your splendid cooperation, and 
to all of the Community Choruses, and to those 
who have had faith in me as a student and leader 
in this^movement. 

Your friend and co-worker. 




/^,5?:44/«X^ 



II: Percy MacKaye to Harry Barnhart 

Dear Harry: 

Your work and my work have been moving 
towards one goal, since long before either of us 
was born. So it is not strange that, after some 
years of separate groping for each other, you and 
I should now join hands in a common creative task. 

But first there was considerable groping, Harry, 
and considerable wrestling of the spirit! 

Do you remember that night, a year ago last 
autumn, the little table in a corner of a New York 
restaurant (in Eighth Street, was it?) — how you 
and Arthur Farwell and I sat there together into 
the small hours, and grappled with an elusive Idea? 

That Idea — hard to lay hold on with words — 
rose up amidst us, astral, naked and calm as the 
ghost of an oriental wrestler, oiled with the oint- 

xiii 



PREFACE: II 



ments of Buddha, and — with thrusts of imperturb- 
able jiu jitsu — kept our combative Yankee intel- 
ligences staggered and sprawling apart? 

How are art and social service to be reconciled? 

How the devil (in Yankee '^doxology'') can 
Community Singing be dramatized? 

How shall the Hermit Soul of an individual poet 
give valid, spontaneous expression to the Com- 
munal Soul of assembled multitudes? 

Can Inspiration be organized and rehearsed? 

How may the surging Tides of Man be sluiced 
in Conduits of Art, without losing their primal glory 
and momentum? 

So, with his ticklish question points, the deft 
Wrestler dug our metaphysical ribs, and we winced 
— but with no grimace of laughter then. 

No; that night for us there was serious business 
at hand. For all this soul searching sprang from 
a serious alternative: Were we three co-workers 
for a community ideal to join together in a new, 
imminent adventure, or were we to work apart? 

The new adventure was the proposed production 
of a masque of community singing, ^*The Evergreen 
Tree,'' which I had recently written, and for which 
Arthur Farwell had just finished composing the 
music. Each one of us had dedicated himself to 
serve community song; but Arthur and I were 
artists who must needs go apart separately (her- 
mits on the country hills, forsooth!) to soliloquize 
forms of expression for the seething hearts and 
souls of multitudes, caged chiefly in swarming 
cities: whereas you, Harry, — you were (and are) 
an artist so constantly, so intimately in touch with 
the very well-springs of all community art — the 

xiv 



PREFACE: II 



presence of the people themselves convened for 
expression — that you, as Chorus Leader, conjuring 
the inmost spirit of Spontaneity at every moment, 
have naturally enough seemed to yourself less con- 
cerned with evolving processes of an art than with 
testifying to processes of a miracle. 

So it was no wonder — that hour before dawn, as 
we rose from our little table in the restaurant, — 
that you wrung our hands and parted with Arthur 
and me, saying — in the metaphors of affection: 

" Get ye behind me, sons of Sathanas! I go my 
ways: go yours — and a merciful God along with 
you! Go your way, Arthur Farwell, apart to your 
composer's study! Go your path, Percy Mac- 
Kaye, to whatsoever place whence you summon 
the disciples of Drama and Lighting and Dance 
and Pageantry, to clothe the Great Unseen of 
Song in visual symbols. Not for mine! The 
Great Unseen Itself, with workaday pants and 
no pedestal — that's good enough for Harry. 
You're all right, boys, but I'm right. So the top 
o' the morning to you!" 

And the morning came up, grayly. 

That was about a year and a half ago. 

You can imagine, then, how I felt — only a few 
weeks ago — when I heard the knocker of the little 
stable-house in East Seventeenth Street bang with 
brass thunder, heard your voice in the hall and the 
vigor of your step on the stair, and saw you looming 
there in my doorway, sharpening your eyes with 
laughter. 

Before you spoke, I felt what had happened: 
You had joined my path by your own path, not 
by a cross-cut. The Great Unseen, that held us 

XV 



PREFACE: II 



both by the hand, had led us — by separate experi- 
ences — together. 

Your choruses in the Oranges and Buffalo were 
in need of a dramatic festival, to fulfil their expand- 
ing growth of expression in Community Singing. 

You brought me a rough outline of ideas for 
such a festival, born of your experience in common 
with the singers you were leading. You brought 
me also your own and the singers' invitation to 
evolve from your sketch-outline some form of 
dramatic ritual, appropriate to-day for those spon- 
taneous beginnings of an art of to-morrow. 

Would I do it? 

Could anything prevent me, my dear Harry! 

At the time, I was under very great pressure of 
other work, but that night I began the '^Will of 
Song.'' The results, so far as such results can be 
put in type, are published here: but how can such 
things, however unpretentious, be printed? 

All poetry is meagre apart from the voice that 
should chant it; the voice that may chant it is 
meagre devoid of the soul that imagines it. Then 
how much more so, when this soul is multiple, and 
not only multiple voices but manifold visualizing 
must be focused and harmonized through a co- 
operation which can be conjured only by spell of 
an inspired leadership like your own! 

These considerations are important to more 
than the reader of this book: they are important 
to all social workers who may fancy, merely by 
organizing the outward forms and facilities of 
community art, that the art itself can thereby be 
galvanized into being. 

You have been always right, Harry, a thousand 

xvi 



PREFACE: II 



times right, in believing (and acting on your belief) 
that only a primal spontaneity can ever constitute 
the abiding cornerstone of community art — in 
song, or drama, or their union. No sounding 
labels, no superimposed financierings, for ** Com- 
munity Singing,'' '^ Community Drama," Commu- 
nity Theatres, '' can ever be substitutes (may indeed 
be only obstructions) for those urgings of the 
people's hearts which cry out for impassioned 
utterance of their joy and sorrow and beauty. 

In these printed pages, then, are concealed, more 
than revealed (entirely revealed only for those 
who can participate in remembrance or imagina- 
tion) those opportunities for the spontaneous out- 
pourings of popular aspiration in song, indicated 
here in the recurrent, structural portions of this 
work marked by printed directions to the effect: 
**Here the people take part in community singing." 

In this regard *^The Will of Song" is, I believe, 
the first work in its field to utilize the untrained 
singing of the people as a structural part of its 
artistry. 

For the first time, also, in this work appears (for 
the trained participants) an experimental invention 
which I do not hesitate to believe is the most im- 
portant modern contribution to communal dra- 
matic art, in its potentiality for future develop- 
ment. 

This invention, the Group Person, I had been 
groping toward in earlier experiments of my 
masques, but not until I sought to solve the prob- 
lems inherent in this dramatizing of community 
song, did its necessity and form stand out clear 
and apparent. 

xvii 



PREFACE : H 



The necessity was for, evolving communal (no 
longer individual) Dramatis Personae for communal 
drama; the form essential to this end was one 
involving sculptural grouping for the eye, choral 
chanting for the ear, and scenic position of the 
resulting Group Person, whence sound and vis- 
ibility would radiate in all directions to the as- 
sembled people, who should be ^^ audience,'* in the 
old sense, no longer, but all participating artists. 

Here in this work, of course, I have done no 
more than to contribute this Group Person in its 
earliest stage of development, wherein this '^Dra- 
matic Service" can hardly be said to have passed 
from ritual into the realm of real drama. 

At its first performance in Orange, New Jersey, 
Irving Pichel — that most gaily serene and resource- 
ful genius of all work — directed the scenic produc- 
tion, acted the part of Will, and rehearsed the 
chanters of the Group Persons; and Robert Ed- 
mond Jones, who had designed the gleaming oil- 
cloth costumes for their overhead lighting, was 
present with me among the gathered people. At 
the end, as we parted in the crowd, I questioned 
him: ''Well, Bobby?" And he nodded enthu- 
siastically: "All right! — Crude now, of course, but a 
splendid beginning. By all means the most important 
experiment so far, for our theatre that's coming." 

Ages ago, in Greece, when ^schylus first evolved 
his Dramatis Personae from choral dancers, he 
evolved individual actors, and from those begin- 
nings there has developed, by increasing stages, 
from those communal beginnings, the drama of 
Individualism through centuries down to Ibsen and 
our time. 

xviii 



PREFACE: H 



Now, in the world revolution of our own age, 
when ages of Individualism appear to be molten 
in the furnace of a new evolving order, the begin- 
nings of a fresh communal art are apparent in the 
living growth of *^ Community Singing," which 
everywhere amongst us is bursting into flower. 

And now, from community singing, as it ripens 
slowly into dramatic forms, I seem to see — in this 
evolving form of the Group Person — the beginnings 
of a new Drama, which will develop from its com- 
munal elements — not such individual forms as 
first sprang from the experiment of ^schylus, but 
communal forms (appropriate to those communal 
elements) as infinitely varied and changing as the 
magic crystal shapes that combine and coalesce in 
a child's kaleidoscope. And these geometric 
group-forms, which shall take on prismatic fires of 
color for the eye, shall be choral with fugues of 
chanted poetry for the ear. 

Already the tested chanting of the Group Per- 
sons in the productions of " The Will of Song " at the 
Oranges and Buffalo has led to plans of ours for a 
proposed new experiment in connection with your 
*^ Sings" in Central Park, New York, this summer. 
There thousands of people will gather weekly to 
sing out of doors^at night under}your leadership, as 
in former seasons they have taken part in the 
"Song and Light" festivals devised by you and 
Claude Bragdon. 

Now the time appears ripe to test there — on a 
large, informal, outdoor scale — the chanting of 
poetry by the people in choral speech, as a further 
development of group-expression related to their 
choral singing. 

xix 



PREFACE: II 



By such means, opportunity may be given for 
the people and the poets to come into direct dy- 
namic touch, with no mediation of the printed page, 
and so test and develop their mutual relationship: 
— To the poet may be revealed new criteria of his 
own powers, by the need for composing '* chan- 
ties" (in a new, community land-sense of that old 
sea-word) which may fulfil, through rhythmic 
speech, such simple needs of the heart as *'My Old 
Kentucky Home" and '*01d Black Joe" fulfil 
through song. — To the people may be revealed an 
unaccustomed sense that the poet is, after all, no 
recluse of the library, but the boon-comrade and 
interpreter of their own festival hours of outdoor 
liberation. 

The ''Canticles" of Witter Bynner, which were 
chanted under his direction in the Greek Theatre 
at Berkeley, California, are beautiful precedents 
in this field. 

The chants by the people of Walt Whitman's 
poems, with which we are hoping to inaugurate 
your ''Community Sings" in Central Park this 
summer, may well prove to be the most significant 
tribute, in his centenary year, to our country's 
prophet, who wrote half a century ago: "I hear 
America singing." 

These great and real potentialities deserve great 
critics to detect and illumine them for the people. 
But where shall we find great critics in this com- 
munity field? 

Sensitive minds and hearts, alive to these pro- 
phetic meanings — yes, those you have found in the 
membership of your choruses, and I have found 
among very humble participants in my masques. 

XX 



PREFACE: II 



Yet what they sense so surely they are seldom able 
to express coherently. 

Will it sometime be otherwise? And from 
those thousands, who are now taking part in creat- 
ing community art, will ere long its valid critics arise 
and interpret its lovely parables to the multitude? 

However this may be (and I believe it will be) 
that was a happy day for the people of our country 
when you, some years ago, made it your will, and 
set aside all personal considerations to the end, that 
America should become a singing nation. Since 
then, thousands of anonymous disciples and co- 
workers have spread fire from the torch your will 
kindled, till now Singing rises like a conflagration from 
all these States, and sweeps beyond them overseas. 

The question now is no longer whether our 
masses shall become vocal in song, but whether our 
mass singing itself shall become choral with deeper 
harmonies of the spirit, and so move onward to 
the attainment of organic freedom through nobler 
structures of art. 

In this larger adventure you still are prophet and 
pioneer; and I count it a very happy privilege to 
be your team-fellow in our present task of making 
a modest start. 

For the privilege is one larger even than large 
personal friendship, as I have sought to suggest in 
some lines — which I wrote for you, two years ago 
— placed now at the front of this book, in dedica- 
tion both to you and to our common goal. 
Yours always, 





New York: 12 June, iQ^Q* 

zxi 



DRAMATIS PERSONS 

PART I 
"SOUL OF EARTH'' 

INDIVIDUAL PERSONS 
WILL, Chanter 

SOUL OF EARTH, Mute Presence 
SPRING, Dancer 
PLAY, Dancer 
SONG, Singer 

GROUP PERSONS 
LOVE 

Chanters: Men, Women and Children 
JOY 

Chanters: Men, Women and Children 
LIBERTY 

Chanters: Men, Women and Children 

PARTICIPATING GROUPS 

CHILD-EMISSARIES (Of Soul of Earth) 
CHILDREN OF EARTH (The Chorus) 
PEOPLES OF EARTH (By Nationalities) 
SPIRITS OF SPRING (In Dance) 
SPIRITS OF PLAY (In Dance) 
SPIRITS OF SONG (In Processional) 

PART II 
"SOUL OF LIGHT" 

INDIVIDUAL PERSONS 
WILL, Chanter 

SOUL OF LIGHT, Mute Presence 
IMAGINATION, Dancer 
xxii 



DRAMATIS PERSONS 



IN HAYDN'S ''CREATION'' 
GABRIEL 
URIEL 
RAPHAEL 
ADAM 
EVE 

GROUP PERSON 
BROTHERHOOD 

Chanters: Men, Women and Children 

PARTICIPATING GROUPS 

CHILDREN OF LIGHT (The Chorus) 
SPIRITS OF IMAGINATION (In Dance) 

TIME AND PLACE 

The Time is that of any community singing of 
the people, gathered together at night. 

The Place is the assembly place of such singing, 
out of doors or indoors, though this Service was 
devised primarily for use indoors, as it was written 
for the direct demands of the Community Choruses 
of Orange, N. J., and Buffalo, N. Y., assembled in 
Armories of those cities. 

Accordingly, the setting should be arranged in 
the manner indicated by Mr. Irving Pichel, in his 
note on '^ Setting for Production'' in the i\ppendix 
of this volume. 

In this setting, the trained Community Chorus 
— in simple overslip costumes of bronze-green (for 
Part I), or blue (for Part II) — are seated on 
their raised Arc of Seats in full view (when the 
light is on them), forming a background of color 
for the plastic figures and dancers on the stage. 

xxiii 




O H 
C/3 O) 



H o 



O -5.1 



THE WILL OF SONG 

PART I 
SOUL OF EARTH 



NOTICE TO THE PUBLIC 

No performance of this work may be given without 
first obtaining permission to do so. Those desiring to 
obtain such permission should communicate with the 
Director of "The Will of Song," New York Community 
Chorus, 130 East 226. Street, New York City. 



/ 



TT 



ly 




K 



t 



SOUL OF EARTH 
Prelude 

THE festival begins with a usual "Community 
Sing/' 
The People of the Community, but not yet 
the Trained Chorus, are assembled and seated. 

Appearing and standing by the Central Seat, the 
LEADER OF THE CHORUS leads the People in 
singing "America," and other familiar songs. 

So for several minutes they continue to sing together. 



First Action 
("Ourselves") 

AS the final song of the Prelude ceases, the assem- 
bly hall grows suddenly dark, and the Dark- 
^ NESS is filled with fanfare of blowing Trumpets. 
And now, taking up the trumpets' refrain, the 
Orchestra plays an elemental music, suggestive of 
rain, wind, thunder and the rushing of waters; from 
behind the raised Central Seat, great Flashes of Fire 
spout upward, and while they are flaring, there rises — 
in the place where the Chorus leader was standing — a 
FLAME-GOLD FIGURE in a cone of Hght, who calls 
with deep, vibrant voice: 

THE FIGURE 

Who has risen up from the heart of the people? 

(Instantaneous, from three portions of the assembly — at left, 
right and back center— the VOICES OF THREE GROUPS 
Men, Women and Children — answer from the dark in 
triple unison.) 

THE VOICES 

I! 

THE FIGURE 

And who are ye that cry out with one answer? 

3 



THE WILL OF SONG 



You! 



THE VOICES 

(Together, as before) 

THE FIGURE 

And who am I that am risen of your asking? 

THE VOICES 



Ourselves! 



THE FIGURE 



Ourselves, the people: ourselves, the soul of tempest, 
The center of silence, the seed of flame in the ashes, 
Ourselves, the will of the world, are risen in Song — 
In Song and the chanting Word. 

THE VOICES 

Sing to us, Spirit! 

WILL 
Out of yourselves I sing. 

THE VOICES 

Strengthen us, we pray! 

WILL 

Only in that prayer I am strong, and out of your 

weakness 
I am risen to serve you in strength. For you were 

dumb, 

4 



SOUL OF EARTH 



And I was your oracle; for you were blind, 
And I was your torch of vision; for you were buried 
Even as the dead entombed, but I — your seraphi — 
I rolled back the stone from the door of your breast, 

and you 
Went forth to morning and to resurrection. Yea, 
Even we ourselves went forth, for you, the dumb 
And blind, rebelled from your own darkness, 
And we went forth together. 

THE VOICES 

Together, Spirit, 

WILL 
I am the Door of Light. 



Lead us in light! 



Lead us in song! 



Teach us thy law! 



THE VOICES 

WILL 

I am the Will of Song. 

THE VOICES 
WILL 



Only the loving can learn it, 
And only the meek administer. Mine is the law 
No tablet of stone can record, nor hand of steel enforce. 

5 



THE WILL OF SONG 



For the words of my law are written as on tablets of 

wax, 
As a cidld's warm breath on the cold window-pane, 
For so shall their beauty endure, like the splendor of 

frost 
Commingling with frostbeam and sunlight and rainbow 

forever. 

THE VOICES 
FROM TEE LEFT 
But the frost melts. 

FROM TEE RIGET 
Breath fades away. 
FROM TEE CENTER 

How shall the changing endure? 

WILL 

The unchanging is death. My law is the rhythm of life, 

The communion of change. For of us they only shall live 

Who are born again, and we who are born of Song 

Inherit eternal life. On rhythmic tides 

Surging eternal choral harmonies, 

With pillars of choiring hymn and fugue, we build 

Our temple of the Covenant of Peace. 

THE VOICES 

(All, together) 

Peace! — Peace! — O where is Peace on Earth? 

6 



SOUL OF EARTH 



WILL 

Peace lives 
Not on the iron shell, but in the soul — 
In Soul of Earth, mother of immortal change. 
Her pulsing heart is Peace. She only can 
Communicate the common life of all 
That nurtures Love and Joy and Liberty. 

THE VOICES 
Reveal her! Call her! 



WILL 

Soul of Earth, arise! 



Second Action 
("Voices of the World") 

BELOW the Figure of WILL, at the foot of the 
raised Central Seat, rises now from beneath — 
to Orchestral Music— SOUL OF EARTH, a 
noble female form, majestically maternal, clad in head- 
dress and robe of bronze-green and golden-brown and 
coppery gold. 

Beside her nestle THREE CHILDREN, her Emis- 
sary Spirits. 

Standing at center, by a gesture she sends them forth 
from her. To right, left and back, they dart away and 
come returning with hundreds more — groups of the 
CHILDREN OF EARTH, clothed severally in the 
colors of Soul of Earth. These-^Groups, comprising 
the entire Trained Chorus (except those who enter, 
with Song, in the Ninth Action), pass upward to the 
raised Arc of Seats, where they take their permanent 
places. 

Now, when they are gathered, suddenly — flaming 
out of the midst of the seated Spectators, at points of 
a great Triangle, left, center and right — appear, for the 
first time, the three GROUP-PERSONS— LOVE, 
JOY and LIBERTY— whose Voices till now have 
called from the darkness. 

Now — like waves of color rising from the dusk level 
of seated People — they appear momentarily: Love, 
at left — a living pyre of Figures, all in glowing bronze; 
Joy, at right — all of silver; Liberty, at center — all of 

8 



SOUL OF EARTH 



gold; the Apex-Figure of each bearing the distinctive 
Symbol of the Group-Person. 

Together — with mingled voices of Men, Women 
AND Children — the Three call aloud from the People, 
in chanting unison. 

THE THREE GROUP-PERSONS 

Soul of Earth, Soul of Earth, hail! 
We are the yearnings of Man. 
Out of the dark we rise, we call! 
Soul of Earth, Soul of Earth, hear us! 

wn.L 

Silent is Soul of Earth, 

Yet heareth all things; 

Mute are her lips. 

But mine utter the cry of her silence. 

THE THREE 
What is the cry of her silence? 

WILL 

Out of all sundered lands, 

Out of all wastes of pain, 

This is her cry — the cry of her dumbness : 

Peoples, — my peoples, — peace ! 

Come to me, O my peoples, and be one! 

(The blowing of muffled Bugles is heard, followed by the low 

hoarse murmuring of many Voices. 
During this, Soul of Earth takes her place on the low central 

dais — a seated Figure, pensive in shadowed relief against the 

9 



THE WILL OF SONG 



pedestal on which — ^by the Central Seat — ^Will is standing 

above her. 
Beside her, on the ground, the three Child-Emissaries are 

grouped. 
And now — ^revealed or concealed as they speak or are silent — 

successively the Three Group-Persons chant, in unison, 

one to another.) 

LIBERTY 

(At center) 
Hearken, Love! What murmurs are rising? 

LOVE 

(At left) 
Voices of the World ! Joy, do you hear them? 



JOY 

(At right) 



I hear them! 



LIBERTY 
What name are they calling? 

JOY 

Your own! 
Liberty! Liberty! Liberty! — Answer! 

LIBERTY 

Together let us call them. 

10 



SOUL OF EARTH 



LOVE, JOY AND LIBERTY 

(Together) 

Peoples of All-lands, 
Soul of Earth summons you! 



Come together! 



WILL 

Peoples of Earth, 



II 



Third Action 
("Hunger and Bread of Life") 

A MID Murmur of their own Voices, the PEOPLES 
/A OF EARTH, in costumes of many NationaHties, 
-^ -^ now enter in Groups the place of the stage. 

Each Group utters aloud one word — the word 
Liberty in its own language. In pantomime, the 
Groups show toward one another their mutual fear, 
wonder, or suspicion, and begin to fall into panic. 



LIBERTY 



My name they speak; 
Yet are they troubled. 



WILL 



Many tongues they speak. 

But share no common understanding; 

Assembled, yet are they sundered. 

LOVE 
I am afraid for them. 



LIBERTY 

Their hearts are breaking. 



12 



SOUL OF EARTH 



JOY 

Have they no bond in common? 

wn.L 

Be not afraid. 
One simple bond they share — one common hunger 
Which Soul of Earth shall satisfy; 
For breaking hearts are healed with broken bread 
When soul is the sharer. — ^Peace to you, O my Peoples! 
Receive from Soul of Earth your daily bread, 
And you, all Children of Earth, sing — sing as one! 

By her gesture, Soul of Earth sends forth again her Child- 
Emissaries, who fetch Baskets of Bread and distribute them 
among the Peoples or Earth. 

These break of the bread, sharing it, and — expressing by their 
pantomime a new, happy understanding in common — ^group 
themselves at right and left, on the raised platforms of the 
stage. 

During this, at the words of Will ["Sing! Sing as one!"] 

ALL THE ASSEMBLED PEOPLE 
have burst into 

COMMUNITY SINGING 

[led by the Chorus Leader, from his lower leading stand, at 
center] and have joined together in the hymn: 

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coining of the 
Lord.'' 



13 



A 



Fourth Action 
("No more will I be afraid") 

S their singing ceases, Will raises his voice again 
in chanting speech. 

WILL 



Peoples of Earth, now has the first foundation 

Been laid for our temple! Now have we mortised 

together — 
Of bread and song — the cornerstone of our Peace: 
For bread of life is the beginning of brotherhood. 
And sharing of bread commences the communion of 

Song. 
Who, then, of us all, shall give pledge to Soul of Earth 
To build — upon this beginning — a new world? 

LOVE 
Soul of Earth— Soul of Earth— I! 

JOY 

And I! 

LIBERTY 

Yea, and I! 
14 



SOUL OF EARTH 



WILL 



Hail Love, and Joy, and Liberty— you three! 

Soul of Earth hears and welcomes you with my will. 

Speak, Love 1— What is your vow to Soul of Earth? 



LOVE 

No more will I he afraid, ^tt 

O, nevermore will I fear! 

WILL 
What will you fear no more? 

LOVE 
The new world to be bom, 
The birth of the Hfe to be— Women 

Now will I fear no more. AU 

WILL 
But how shall that world be born? 

LOVE 

Symbol 

In pain and the winter's waste, Bearer 

Out of the darkness' womb; 
Yet will I not he afraid! 
IS 



THE WILL OF SONG 



Men Though I hear the roar of glaciers moaning, 

The burst of ice-chains, and the awful 
Wind of the avalanche — 

Children Y^t 710 fuore wUl I he afraid^ 

Men Oy nevermore will I fear, 

WILL 

But why has your fear departed? 

LOVE 

Bearer " I have touched my lips to the bread of life, 

Men I have bowed my soul to thy will, Song, 

^sJ^rgi' And thine is the law of rhythmic life, 

Women And thy law henceforth is my law. 

All And our law shall give the new world birth. 

Children Therefore will I not he afraid, 

All 0, nevermore will I fear: 

Men For mine is the moaning in darkness, 

Wornen Mine — ^mine is the bursting of chains. 

Children And Spring— Spring— Spruig— Spring— 

All Spring of the world — is mine! 

WILL 

Spring of the world, appear! 
i6 



FIFTH ACTION 

(Spring) 

FROM beside Soul of Earth, the First Child- 
Emissary starts momentarily away toward the 
left entrance, and ushers there the gold-green 
form of SPRING, who comes forward in the midst 
of her attendant Dancing Spirits, as Will calls again, 
from his high place: 

WILL 

Spring, you have heard the call of Love. 
You are her pledge of Peace to Soul of Earth, 
Of Peace, that comes on wings of homing birds 
To fill all hearts with song — as we sing now! 

(While now the Spirits of Spring take their places by Soul of 
Earth, 

ALL THE ASSEMBLED PEOPLE 

raise their voices in 

COMMUNITY SINGING, 

led by the Chorus Leader. 
At conclusion of their singing, Will speaks again.) 

WILL 

Now, Spring, let these your fairy pupils' feet 
Be rhythmic to my will, 

17 



THE WILL OF SONG 



And you, all Spirits of Earth and Spring, let gush 
The fountains of your voices to their footfalls. 

(In response, Spring assembles her Group of DANCING 
SPIRITS at center, where — ^before the seated form of Soul 
OF Earth — they perform a 

DANCE 

in rhythm to the Trained Voices of the Costumed Chorus, 
who break now into song from their Arc of Seats in the back- 
ground. 
At ceasing of this Choral Dance and Song, Spring and her 
Dancers retire to the stage background and group them- 
selves there in gracious postures of quiet.) 



i8 



R 



SIXTH ACTION 

("O, I will chant me a happy prayer") 

ISING, Will stands a moment in silence, then 
speaks wonderingly. 



WILL 

A sound — a sound, far off! 

(Beginning very low — ^in darkness, which changes gradually 
through dimness to glowing radiance — the Group-Person 
JOY quivers with light and sound.) 

Deep down — I hear it — a murmur: 

(He listens again; the Murmuring grows more distinct.) 

Up — up, from dusk of my heart, 
A silvery sound, I see it rising — 
Joy, joy of my people! 

(The murmurous Sound is now audible as the Clapping of 
Hands, where — wavelike, out of the people — the Group- 
Person JOY glows and pulses with its rays of outreached 
arms, striking the palms of its hands in measure to the 
rhythmic chant of its multiple voice.) 

19 



THE WILL OF SONG 



Symbol- 
Bearer 

Children 
Symbol- 
Bearer 

Children 

Men 

y Women 



Children 
All 



All 



Symbol- 
Bearer 



Children 
AU 



JOY 

O, I will chant me a happy prayer: 

Clap, clap, hands of my heart! 
O, I will be glad that earth is so fair; 

Clap, clap, palms of my joy! 

That the Peoples of Earth have broken 
Their shared bread while they sing, 

And the Children of Earth have danced in token 
Of Spring, the wonder of Spring — 

Clap, clap, palms of my joy. 

Hands, hands of my heart! 

WILL 
Joy, my Joy, is it you? 

JOY 

'Tis you and I — you and I. 

WILL 

And what is your pledge, my Joy, — 
Your pledge to Soul of Earth? 

JOY 

The pledge of joy is prayer, 

And the hands I clasp in praying 

I clap, clap, clap in the air 
To the rhythm my heart is obeying. 

WILL 

But why have you risen, like a wave 
From the sea of my people's sorrows? 

20 



\ 



SOUL OF EARTH 



JOY 

I am the life from below the grave, b^ut 

The to-day of all to-morrows. ah 

WILL 

And what is the pledge of peace 
You bring to a world new born? 



JOY 

Symhol' 

I start where the dead worlds cease, Bearer 

I flower in the mildewed com. Women 

Symbol- 

And this is the pledge of peace I bring: Bearer 

Clap, clap, hands of my heart! Children 

. . Men y 

That the prayer of joy is m every thmg; Women 

Clap, clap, palms of my joy! Children 

Symbol' 

And the sundered hearts that labor Bearer 

And weary of workaday Men 

Are joined anew with neighbor and neighbor Women 

In play — the wonder of play: All 

Clap, clap, palms of my joy. Children 

Hands, hands of my heart! All 

WILL 

Clap, clap, O Children of Earth, 
Till Play to Joy shall come forth! 

21 



SEVENTH ACTION 

(Hay) 

AT the words of Will, all the Chorus from their 

r\ Arc of Seats break into Clapping of Hands, 

while Soul of Earth, rising, sends forth her 

Second Child-Emissary, who runs to the entrance and 

ushers there the joyous Figure of PLAY, attended by 

her Dance Spirits. 

With their appearance. Will calls again: 

Sing, sing, O my People, 

For Play has come forth unto Joy! 

(And now, as the Clapping ceases, 

ALL THE ASSEMBLED PEOPLE 
join in 

COMMUNITY SINGING, 

led by the Chorus Leader. 

Then, as the Community Singing concludes, Will calls to those 
in the Arc of the Chorus.) 

WILL 

And now, you Spirits of Earth and Spring and Play! 
Tune all your throats to music-fluting reeds 
That Play may dance thereto her plastic games 
To pleasure Soul of Earth. 

22 



SOUL OF EARTH 



At this, PLAY and her DANCING GROUP, at center, per- 
form their 

DANCE 

to accompaniment of the Choral Voices, singing from the 

Arc of the Chorus. 
Concluding, the Dancers join the group of Spring and her 

Spirits in the background, as Will rises from his place and 
j;^ speaks once more. 



23 



w 



Eighth Action 
("Bread of life has quickened me") 

HILE he speaks, distant Trumpets are heard 
pealing as from undergroiind, followed by faint 
sound of Voices in Choral Song. 

WILL 



What bugles call? What mufHed pealings rise 
Like Roman candles through the muted dark 
And melt in stars of morning? Ah, what voice 
Strikes upward like a golden spearhead flaming 
In the forges of sunrise? 

LIBERTY 

(Flaming in sudden gold, flashing with motion of multiple arms 
outreached in the Clashing of Cymbals, cries aloud:) 

jll Liberty! Liberty! — Mine! 

fT&mgn Mine are the voices of bugles! 

Children Mine are the stars of morning! 

Mgn The forges of sunrise — mine! 

WILL 

And what do your voices avow 
As pledges to Soul of Earth? 
24 



SOUL OF EARTH 



LIBERTY 

(Chanting to refrain of clashing Cymbals) 

Soul of Earth has girded me! 

Clash! — Clash! 

Arms, arms of my Soul! 

Newly armed am I Liberty: 

Clangy clang, my will! 

For Spring now raiseth my spear, 

Play beareth my sword, 
Song, Song, Song is my shield, 

And Will of Song is my lord. 

(Once more faint strains of Choral Singing are heard rising.) 



Symbol-Bearer 
{Man) 

Women y 
Children 
Symbol- 
Bearer 

Men 

Women 

Children 

Men 

All 



WILL 

What, then, for the new-born world 
Is your pledge of Peace to Earth? 



LIBERTY 

Bread of life has quickened me! 

Beat!— Beat! 

Life, life of my heart! 

Threefold now am I Liberty: 

Climb, O climb, my will! 

For Love is my battle goal, 

Joy maketh me strong, 
25 



Symbol-Bearer 
(Man) 



Women y 
Children 

Symbol-Bearer 
Men 

Women 
Children 



THE WILL OF SONG 



Men Song, Song is my beating heart, 

All And the heart of Peace is Song. 

WILL 

(Speaks through the uprising sound of Choral Voices) 

Hearken, O Soul of Earth, and lift your eyes! 
Song is your pledge from Liberty; and now 
Song, Song reveals herself to serve you. See 
Where she is coming. 
And leads her unseen choirs grown visible! 



26 



Ninth Action 
(Song) 

LOUDER, now, and more loud grow the Choral 
Voices, till soon — far down the aisle — SONG 
and Her Spirits appear singing, and march to 
rhythm of their voices toward the stage, where Soul of 
Earth comes forward at the center and welcomes 
them, as they ascend. There they kneel grouped 
before her, concluding their song. 

Rising at her gesture, they break into a new hymning 
and group themselves on the stage. 

When now they have concluded their singing, Will 
turns and speaks to the Chorus and to All the Assem- 
bled People. 

WILL 

O Children of Earth, Children of Song, my people! 

The order of the stars is rhythmic change. 

Brief are our lives; immortal is our life — 

Our life in common, where all selves commingle; 

So we in chorus are a constellation 

That guides our world to order and to peace. 

Dark is our world; but Soul of Earth shall lead us 

Toward Soul of Light, and bread toward brotherhood. 

Tomorrow Brotherhood shall clasp our hands 

And Soul of Light shall lead us. — Children, sing! 

27 



Finale 

A MOMENT of Darkness falls. 
From the darkness, BUGLES are blown. 
^ In the returning light, Will and Soul of Earth 
are no longer visible, but in the place of Will the 
CHORUS LEADER, in costume of the Chorus, stands 
with raised baton and calls: 

THE CHORUS LEADER 

Sing, Children, all! 

(So, as he leads the entire Assemblage in 

COMMUNITY SINGING, 

the Trained Choral Singers disperse in ordered march from 
their seats in the Arc, while the risen People stand singing 
the final Anthem.) 



END OF PART I 



28 



PART II 

SOUL OF LIGHT 



SOUL OF LIGHT 
Prelude 

IN the Arc of raised Seats, the members of the Com- 
munity Chorus have assembled in the dimness. 
In the main body of the assembly hall, the 
People oe the Community are gathered and seated 
in full light. 

There the CHORUS LEADER, appearing at the 
raised central seat, leads them in singing: 

"Joy to the World'' 



31 



First Action 
("We grope apart: who shall unite us?'*) 

AS the Community Singing ceases, sudden Dark- 

r\ NESS* fills the assembly hall, from three por- 

tions of which, where the People are seated, 

out of the dark, three chiming Bells resound — one 

deep, one mezzo, and one high-pealing in tone. 

And now the Chimes are taken up by the Orchestra, 
which plays music of a starry solemnity. Through 
these strains of music, the three Chimes sound again 
from the Darkness, and with them the chanting 
VOICES of Men, Women and Children calling in 
Choral Speech: 

THE VOICES 

Soul of Light! — Soul of Light! — Soul of Light! 

(In response to these Voices, the Orchestra plays brief strains 
of the elemental Music which commenced Part I, and Flashes 
of Fire leap upward from behind the raised central Seat, 
while the VOICE OF WILL resounds.) 

THE VOICE OF WILL 

Who are you that call upon Soul of Light? 

* During this darkness members of the Community Chorus 
slip on their simple over-garments of blue, which were placed 
on the back of their seats at the beginning. 

33 



THE WILL OF SONG 



THE VOICES 

(All, together) 
Dreamers in darkness: seekers of vision. 

FROM THE LEFT 
(Women) 
I am Love. 

FROM THE RIGHT 
(Children) 
I am Joy. 

FROM THE CENTER 

(Men) 

I am Liberty. 

VOICE OF WILL 

(As the flashes of fire continue) 
What do you seek of her light? 

THE VOICES 
The Way!— The Way! 

VOICE OF WILL 

The Way unto where? 

THE VOICES 

Unto each other: The Way Together. 
We grope apart. Who shall unite us? 

34 



SOUL OF LIGHT 



VOICE OF WILL 

Imagination! 

THE VOICES 

How shall Imagination bring us together? 

VOICE OF WILL 

Only through her is Soul of Light revealed, 
And Soul of Light revealeth Brotherhood. 

THE VOICES 

Brotherhood is our goal; 

But how may Imagination be invoked? 

VOICE OF WILL 

I am the Will of Song, and I invoke her. — 
Imagination, appear! 



35 



Second Action 

(Imagination) 

AT this call, IMAGINATION— an ethereal, Danc- 
ing Form — appears, to Orchestral Music, in 
^ mystic light, at the center of the stage, while once 
more, to their Chimes, the Voices chant from the dark. 

THE VOICES 

Hail— Hail— Hail, 
Imagination ! 

(And now, through the Flames behind the Central Seat, WILL 
rises in gold, and is greeted by the Voices:) 

Hail, O Will of our wills! 

WILL 

Spirit, you who imite 

Dreamers in darkness: 

Dancer, whose motion is music. 

Whose voice is vision, 

Whose silence is the rhythm of song, — 

Imagination ! 

Invoke now, in motion and music 

And vision — for these now in darkness — 

Soul of Light! 

(In response to this appeal, IMAGINATION performs now, 
to Orchestral Music, in 

SOLO DANCE 

her Invocation of Soul of Light.) 

36 



Third Action 
C'And God said: Let there he lightr) 

4 T the culmination of her Dance, in the apex of a 
^Y Triangle of Radiance, SOUL OF LIGHT appears 
at highest center of the dim Arc of the Chorus. 

Below her are grouped URIEL, RAPHAEL and 
GABRIEL: Uriel at the middle, Raphael and Ga- 
briel in the right and left corners of the white Triangle 
of Light. 

Simultaneously, Imagination retires (to the place of 
Soul of Earth in Part I) below Will — a plastic Figure 
silhouetted against his pedestal — ^while Will speaks. 

WILL 

Soul of Light, lead us! 

THE VOICES 
Soul of Light! Soul of Light!— Lead us! 

WILL 

And you, ye Spirits which are 

The raiment of her radiance: you Three, 

Which are for Soul of Earth — Spring, Play and Song, 

For Soul of Light — ^Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael! 

Gather your viewless Choirs and reveal, 

^7 



THE WILL OF SONG 



To those who wait in darkness, how of old 
The Hght that hves in you first had creation. 

RAPHAEL 

(Chants in rhythmic speech: solo) 

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the 

earth; 
And the earth was without form and void; 
And darkness was upon the face of the deep.'' 

RAPHAEL, URIEL AND GABRIEL 

(Chant, likewise, together) 

"And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the 

waters. 
And God said, ^Let there be light': 
And there was light." 

URIEL 

(Chants, solo) 

"And God saw the light, that it was good: 
And God divided the light from the darkness." 

RAPHAEL, URIEL AND GABRIEL 

(Chant, together) 
"A new-created world springs up at God's command." 

GABRIEL 

(Chants, solo) 

"The marvelous work behold amazed 
The glorious hierarchy of heaven." 

38 



SOUL OF LIGHT 



RAPHAEL, URIEL AND GABRIEL 

(Chant, together) 

"The heavens are telling the glory of God; 

The wonder of his work displays the firmament." 

(In sudden illumination, the full Arc of the Chorus bursts into 
LIGHT, revealing the Chorus, clad as the Children of 
Light, in their garments of Blue, while they chant in Choral 
Speech.) 

ALL THE CHORUS 

For God said, *'Let there be light'':— 
And there was light! 



39 



c 



Fourth Action 
("The Creation": Part I) 

ONCLUDING these words of Chanted Speech, 
the CHORUS begins now to sing 



HAYDN'S "CREATION," 



commencing with the Solo of Raphael 
"In the beginnuig God created the Heaven" 
and concluding with the Final Chorus of Part I: 
"The Heavens are telling the glory of God. ' ' 



40 



Fifth Action 
("Mine and Thine are mingled in Ours") 

4 T the climax of this Music of *'The Creation/' 
r\ as the Chorus of Voices are ceasing, CHIMES 
"^ resound from the center of the Assembled 
People, where the three GROUP-PERSONS, con- 
joined now AS ONE, rise in a single Pyre of Bronze 
and Silver and Gold, calling in Chanted Speech: 



THE GROUP-PERSON 

(Brotherhood) 

Symbol-Beart, 

Soul of Light! Soul of Light! (Man) 

In song, in song you have shown us the way ! Ml 



RAPHAEL, URIEL AND GABRIEL 

(Chant, together) 

Hail, Brotherhood! 

ALL THE CHORUS 

(Chant) 

Brotherhood, hail! 
41 



THE WILL OF SONG 



BROTHERHOOD 

(Chants, to the pealing of Chimes) 

Soul of Light has released our powers: 
Chime! Peal in your chiming, 
Bells, O hells, hells. 
Bells of light in the darkness! 

Mine and Thine are mingled in Ours! 

Ring, ring, together, 

Liherty, Love, and Joy! 

Now unto one another, 
All in all, we belong: 

Brother unto Brother, 
Brother unto Brother, 

Children of Light, 
Chiming together 

Bells of light and of song! 

ALL THE CHORUS 

(Chant) 
Hail, Brotherhood! 

(They disappear into dimness) 



RAPHAEL, URIEL AND GABRIEL 

Brotherhood, hail! 

(They, too, with Soul of Light, disappear in Darkness.) 

42 



SOUL OF LIGHT 



BROTHERHOOD 

Where, O where, are you vanished, — 
Soul who mmgled us all? 

WILL 

(Rising) 

The rhythms of dark have banished 
Her Choirs beyond our call. 

BROTHERHOOD 

(Growing dim) 

But her shining showed us the way 
To a new created world. 

WILL 

By the law we all must obey 
Her banners of song are furled. 

BROTHERHOOD 

(Pulsing ever more dimly) i 

Ah me! Ah me, for Soul of Light! 
How shall we call and revere her? 

WILL 

Sing! Let us sing! All through our night 
The dawn of her soul grows nearer. 



43 



Sixth Action 
("Nearer to Thee") 

I J ^ AINTLY, Orchestral Music begins to play, and 

^ ALL THE ASSEMBLED PEOPLE 

join now in 

COMMUNITY SINGING 

of the hymn 

"Nearer My God to Thee.'' 



44 



D 



Seventh Action 
(Soul of Light) 

URING the last of this Community Singing, the 
Group-Person BROTHERHOOD glows again 
into sight and calls aloud to the Figure of Will. 

BROTHERHOOD 

Will of Song! Will of our song! 
Where dwelleth Soul of Light? 

WLLL 

In the soul of Man. 

BROTHERHOOD 

How may we invoke her there? 

WILL 

By Imagination. She once more 

Shall reveal her. Rise, now: move before us 

Once more, — Imagination! 

(Rising from her place at the pedestal of Will, IMAGINATION 
comes forward in mysterious lighting, as Will greets her.) 

And now, with aU your plastic Spirits, siunmon 
Once more in revelation — Soul of Light! 

45 



THE WILL OF SONG 



(At these words of Will, the SPIRITS OF IMAGINATION 
appear from all sides and, under her leadership, perform 
their 

CHORAL DANCE, 

at the culmination of which SOUL OF LIGHT appears once 
more. 



46 



A 



Eighth Action 
("And Man became a living soul") 

S Soul of Light reappears, high at the apex of 
her Glowing Triangle, in which URIEL, ADAM 
and EVE are grouped below her, Will speaks: 



WILL 
Soul of Light! — ^Lead us still! 

BROTHERHOOD 
Soul of Light! Soul of Light! — ^Lead us! 

WILL 
And you, ye Spirits which are 
The body of her being, — Uriel, 
Adam and Eve! Reveal how your own splendor, 
That quickens man to brotherhood, first sprang 
From God, and Man became a Kving Soul. 

URIEL 

(Chants in rhythmic speech: solo) 
"And God created Man in His own image. 
He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, 
And Man became a living Soul.'' 

URIEL, ADAM AND EVE 

(Chant, likewise, together) 
"Achieved is the glorious work; 
Our song let be the praise of God." 

47 



THE WILL OF SONG 



ADAM 

(Chants, solo) 

"Ye mighty elements, by His power 
Your ceaseless changes make; 
Ye dusky mists, and dewy steams, 
That rise and fall through the air — " 

URIEL, ADAM AND EVE 

(Chant, together) 
"Resound the praise of God, our Lord!" 

EVE 

(Chants, solo) 

"Ye purling fountains, tune His praise, 
And wave your tops, ye pines. 
Ye plants, exhale, ye flowers, breathe 
To him your balmy scent." 

URIEL, ADAM AND EVE 

(Chant, together) 

"Hail, boimteous Lord! Almighty, hail! 
Thy world called forth this wondrous frame. 
The heavens and earth Thy power adore." 

ALL THE CHORUS 

(Bursting from the dark into LIGHT, chant aloud) 

"The heavens and earth Thy power adore: 
We praise Thee now and evermore!" 

48 



c 



Ninth Action 
("The Creation" : Parts II and III) 

ONCLUDING these Chanted Words, the Chorus 
— visible in their Costumes of Blue in the full 
Arc of raised seats — sings now once more 

HAYDN'S "CREATION," 



beginning with Part II and continuing, with certain omis- 
sions, through the final chorus: 

"Jehovah's praise forever shall endure. Amen." 



49 



Tenth Action 
("And there was light!") 

WITH this final "Amen," the entire Chorus dis- 
appears in Darkness. 
Out of the Dark sounds again the CHIMING 
OF BELLS. 

And now, shining visible once more, BROTHER- 
HOOD calls aloud from the midst of the People. 



Symbol- 
Beaur 

Women 

Children 

All 

Symbol- 
Bearer 

Men 

All 

Men 

Women 



Symbol' 
Bear$r 



BROTHERHOOD 

Adam! Adam! O Man, our brother! 

Chime! Peal in your chiming, 

Bells, hells, hells. 

Bells of light in the darkness! 
Eve! Eve! Woman, our mother! 

Ring, ring, together 

Liberty, Love and Joy! 

Now from old chaos and pain 
Rises in song the New Creation; 

Now in Imagination 
Shines the First Day again; 

Now, as in the beginning, 
50 



SOUL OF LIGHT 



Peal, peal evermore fFomen 

Chimes, chimes, ChUdrm 

Chimes of the New Creation! ju 

(From behind the pedestal of Will, Fire flashes up, and Will, 
rising, calls:) 

WILL 

"For God said, 'Let there be light!'" 

Will disappears. 

The Fire still flashes upward. 

From the dimness of their Arc of Seats, 

ALL THE CHORUS 

Sing, very low: 
"For God said, 'Let there be light!' 
(Then, with bursting crescendo of sound and radiance) 
And there was light!" 



SI 



I 



FINALE 



NSTANTLY, the entire hall is briUiantly illumined, 
discovering in the place of Will — the CHORUS 
LEADER, who cries aloud, with raised baton: 



THE CHORUS LEADER 



"And there was light!'' 
Sing, — Children of Light! 



In response, ALL THE ASSEMBLED PEOPLE rise; and 
while the Costumed Chorus retire marching in song from 
their places, ALL stand and join in singing the final 

COMMUNITY HYMN 



END OF PART II 



52 



APPENDIX 



MUSICAL PROGRAM AND NOTES 
By Harry Barnhart 

One of the most trying questions the Community Chorus 
Movement has had to face is that of finding the kind and quality 
of music and poetry to be used. 

Eight hundred or a thousand people meeting regularly every 
week for forty or more weeks a year soon taxes the qualities and 
powers of a leader, and puts the music and poetry at hand to a 
peculiar and trying test. 

It is for this reason that, as I have turned to Percy MacKaye 
for his work as dramatic poet, I turn also for cooperation to 
Arthur Farwell as composer, and to all others who have, like 
them, social vision in their poetry and music; for it is only by 
welcoming fresh creative work, developed in close touch with 
the people, that our movement can grow to a great fruition. 

It is true that there is plenty of good music and poetry in 
libraries and stores, but, in order that people shall band them- 
selves together for the purpose of singing it, such work must be 
of prophetic vision, and filled with the warmth of the human 
heart that throbs with the hopes and aspirations of to-morrow. 

There are music and texts that have stood the test of cen- 
turies and are still leading us. Such music ranges from express- 
ing the quaint simplicities of the people's lives to the highest 
forms of choral and fugal harmonies. In the course of three 
years, in various community choruses, I have used this gradation 
of music and text. 

For the benefit of those who are interested in getting an idea 
of the musical setting of "The Will of Song," I have prepared 
the following Musical Program, giving the numbers that were 
used in the productions at Orange and Buffalo. These consist 
of Orchestral Music, Choral and Community Singing. 

55 



MUSICAL PROGRAM AND NOTES 

MUSICAL PROGRAM 
Part I. — Soul of Earth 

1. Swedish Coronation March Svendsen 

2. Community Singing 

America Annie Laurie 

Long Trail Old Folks at Home 

America, the Beautiful 

3. Storm Music Langey 

4. Prelude (Last Dream of the Virgin) . Massenet 

5. Dornroschen (Suite) Tschaikowsky 

6. Furioso No. 2 Langey 

7. Battle Hymn of the Republic . Julia Ward Howe 

8. Rustle of Spring Sinding 

9. Old Kentucky Home Stephen Foster 

Dance f 10. a. Aubade Printaniere Paul Lacombe 

and j Orchestra 

Song [ b. Coming of Spring R, G. Cole 

Children 

II. Dixie DanEmmett 

Dance f 12. a. Czardas (from Ballet "Coppelia") . . Delibes 
and j 

Song [ b. Dancing by Moonlight Chopin 

arr. by C. D. Hare 

13. Welcome, Sweet Springtime .... Rubinstein 

(Melody in F.) arranged for Children's Voices 

14. Largo (from New World Symphony) . . . Dvorak 

Arranged for Children's Voices 

IS- Joy> Brothers, Joy Arthur Farwell 

16. Come, All Ye Faithful J. Reading 

PROGRAM 
'Part II. — Soul of Light 

1. Orchestra. 

2. Joy to the World. 

3. Prelude (Last Dream of the Virgin) . . Massenet 

56 



MUSICAL PROGRAM AND NOTES 

4. Furioso No. 2 Langey 

a. Panorama Tschaikowsky 

(from Dornroschen Suite) 
Dance 5. Isoline Ballet Messager 

6. ''The Creation" Haydn 

To end of "Heavens Are Telling." 

7. Nearer, My God, To Thee. 

Dance 8. Largo (From New World Symphony) , . Dvorak 
9. Remainder of "The Creation." 
10. Hymn: "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing." 



NOTES 

PART I 
PRELUDE 

1 . Coronation March . 

Serves to get the people settled in their seats. 

2. Community Singing. 

Produces the mood and feeling in common, appropriate 
to bring forth Will. 

ACTION ONE 

3. Storm Music. 

Serves to bring forth the Figure of Will. 

4. Massenet Prelude. 

Played very soft during the dialogue between Will and 
Groups. 

ACTION TWO 

5. Tschaikowsky's "Dornroschen." 

Was very impressive. Brings forth Soul of Earth and 
her Spirits. 

ACTION THREE 

6. Furioso No. 2. 

Was thrilling in effect as the Peoples of Earth came in. 

7. Battle Hymn of the Republic. 

Words and music seemed to have been written for the 
scene while the people were breaking bread. 

57 



i 



MUSICAL PROGRAM AND NOTES 

ACTION FOUR 

8. Rustle of Spring. 

(Characteristic.) Was played for the entrance o 
Spring and her Dancing Spirits. 

9. My Old Kentucky Home. 

Is particularly good for community singing and serve( 
at this place very well, though it is not appropriate 
for Spring. It is interesting to note that there i 
not a popular joy song of the people. 

ACTION FIVE 

10. Aubade Printaniere. 

The Lacombe number opened the dance and led int< 
the Children's Chorus "Coming of Spring." Th 
combination of the Children's Chorus and Orchestr; 
and Dancers was very wonderful in effect. 

ACTION SEVEN 

11. Dixie. 

Sung by the entire assemblage. Was well fitted t< 
greet the Spirits of Play. 

12. Czardas. 

From Ballet "Coppelia" with the orchestra was th 
first part of the dance which led into the Children' 
Chorus, "Dancing by Moonlight." 

ACTION NINE 

13. Melody in F, by Rubinstein. 

Arranged for Children's Chorus, was sung by a larg 
group of Children as they proceeded from back 
the hall, and was taken up by the Chorus in th 
Arc as the Children came on the stage. 

14. At the conclusion of this, at the proper moment, th 

trained Chorus sing an arrangement of the "Largo' 
from the "New World Symphony," by Dvorak. 

15. At the command of Will, the Children burst into "Jo> 

Brothers, Joy," by Arthur Farwell,the most inspirin 
joy hymn of modern times. 

FINALE 

12. O Come, All Ye Faithful. 

The entire assemblage rises and sings. 

58 



MUSICAL PROGRAM AND NOTES 

PART II 
PRELUDE 

1. Orchestra as on first evening. 

2. Joy to the World. 

The entire assemblage sings. 

ACTION ONE 

3. Orchestral Prelude. 

Taken up from the chimes out of the darkness and 
played through the entire First Action. 

ACTION TWO 

4. Furioso No. 2. 

Brings on Imagination and Will. 

5. Panorama. 

Fourth movement of the Suite leading into the Isoline 
Ballet. 

ACTION THREE 

Chants. 

ACTION FOUR 

6. "The Creation.'* 

To the end of "Heavens Are Telling." 

ACTION FIVE 

Chants. 

ACTION SIX 

7. Nearer, My God, To Thee. 

Entire assemblage sings. 

ACTION SEVEN 

8. Largo (from New World Symphony). 

Dance. 

ACTION EIGHT 

Chants. 

ACTION NINE 

9. Remainder of the "Creation." 

ACTION TEN 

Chants. 

FINALE 

10. Hark, the Herald Angels Sing. 

Entire assemblage rises and sings. 

59 



SETTING FOR PRODUCTION 
By Irving Pichel 

Productions of "The Will of Song" employ no scenery in th 
accepted sense of the word but only such platforms, steps, an^ 
banks of seats as are required for the projection of the service,- 
in other words, facilities for the actors, singers, and dancen 
In much the same fashion as the church chancel is an outgrowt 
of the demands of conventionalized worship, this stage is a direc 
product of the demands made of it, — no more and no less. It U 
then, a "stage setting" in the purest sense of the word, com 
pletely fulfilling the needs of this performance and addin 
nothing. 

Accordingly, it is to be constructed with no elaboration c 
line or form. All the surfaces exposed to the eye should eithe 
be painted a neutral grey or covered with dark cloth. 

At the back, meeting the eye of the spectator, and at right an 
left, rise tiers of seats for the singers. The exact arrangement c 
these banks depends largely upon conditions to be met in th 
particular auditorium in which the service is to be presentee 

Between the seats and the stage platform, a space is left a 
the level of the main floor. In this space the orchestra is placec 
Directly in front of the orchestra and concealing it from th 
spectators is the stage proper. To this stage enter the group 
of The Peoples of All Lands, Spring, Play, and Song. Acces 
to the stage from the main floor is provided by steps at the righ 
and left front corners of the platform. 

At the back of the stage rises the central seat on which Wi 
appears. It is approached by steps at either side, and a sma^ 
step or ladder, as shown on the ground plan, leads from it to th 
orchestra pit, to provide for the entrance of the actor playin 
Will as well as for the entrance of the song leader. 

On the ground plan are indicated the positions, in the midst c 
the audience, of the three Group Persons, Love, Joy, an( 
Liberty. These facilities are platforms on three levels, th 
uppermost for the Symbol-Bearer of each group, the second fo 

60 



SETTING FOR PRODUCTION 



the Men and Women, and the lowest for the Children, thus pro- 
viding a pyramidal arrangement of the group. It will be noted 
that the seating is so disposed as to leave aisle space about the 
Group Persons, so that they may not obstruct the view of the 

^^The Group Persons should be lighted, from directly overhead, 
by lens-lamps equipped with looo-Watt concentrated filament 
bulbs It may be found necessary to provide each of these spot 
lamps with a sleeve or "louvre" to prevent the light from diffus- 
ing over too wide an area. The general lighting of stage and 
chorus also can best be accomplished by lighting-units hung from 
the ceiling. 



6i 



PROGRAM OF THE ORANGE PRODUCTION 



THE WILL OF SONG 

ORANGE ARMORY, MAY 2nd AND 3rd, 1919. 

COMMUNITY CHORUS OF THE ORANGES 

HARRY BARNHART, Director 
FREDERIC WATSON, Accompanist 
MRS. F. WESTERVELT TOOKER, President 
MRS. ISAAC C. OGDEN, ist Vice-President 
MRS. FRANK H. SHEPARD, 2nd Vice-President 
DISTRICT VICE-PRESIDENTS 
Mr. S. Edgar Briggs, Mr. H. Addison Hickok, Mr. William H. Smith 
Mr. Harry R. Terhune 
Mr. A. E. Condit, Recording Secretary Miss Elizabeth Cooper, Corre- 
sponding Secretary 
Mr. F. Westervelt Tooker, Treasurer 



FOREWORD 

*'The Will of Song" is a Dramatic Service of Community 
Singing, devised in co-operation with Harry Barnhart, by 
Percy MacKaye for use as a Two Days Song Festival. In this 
festival, the experience of Mr. Barnhart as a director of com- 
munity song and the experience of Mr. MacKaye as a designer 
of community drama, after some years of separate growth and 
experiment, have come naturally together by the creative 
necessity implied in a common task — the release of the human 
spirit by means of co-operative expression. This merging of 
their experiences has resulted in a new creative experiment, 
modest in its first step, but potential with large meanings for 
the growth of community art. 

This service is a festival ceremony of solo and choral speech 
and dance, choral song and symbols of costume and light. By 
these means, "The Will of Song" seeks to reveal intimations of 
the sub-conscious rhythmic life whose will is the natural law of 
human brotherhood. 

62 



ORANGE PRODUCTION 



The first day of the festival suggests the workings of this law 
n the simpler relationships of mankind, through Soul of Earth, 
^hen bread is broken and portioned together, when springtime 
,nd play and singing are shared in common. So the first day 
Lses the simpler forms of choral singing as exemplified in usual 
'Community Sings." 

The second day suggests the workings of this law in the subtler 
ealms of human aspirations, where the imagination born of 
ommon sympathy (through Soul of Light) reveals the 
lecessity of brotherhood to the higher development of mankind. 
)0 the second day uses forms of choral singing more highly 
>rganized, as exemplified in Haydn's "Creation." 



FIRST DAY 

Part I. SOUL OF EARTH 

PERSONS AND PARTICIPANTS 

Solo Persons 

In Chanted Speech 

NiW Irving Pichel 

In Pantomime 

50ul of Earth* Mrs. W. E. Alvord 

Spirit of Spring Miss Helen Schaup 

spirit of Play Miss Margaret Bateman 

Spirit of Song Mrs. D. Frederick Burnett 

Group Persons 
In Chanted Speech 

Love Symbol-Bearer, Mrs. E. A. McCoy 

Chanters: Men, Women and Children 

foy Symbol-Bearer, Miss Elizabeth Brown 

Chanters: Men, Women and Children 

Liberty Symbol-Bearer, Mr.fFrederick T. Kelsey 

Chanters: Men, Women and Children 

* The name " Soul of Earth" was suggested by the chief character of "The 
[n-Gathering," a festival ceremony by Prof. Alfred G. Arvold, Director of the 
Little Country Theatre, Agricultural College, North Dakota, and is here 
used with his friendly approval. 

63 



ORANGE PRODUCTION 



{May Ha)rward Hunt 
Nathaniel Gardner 
Jack Johns 

In Group Pantomime 

People of Earth By Nationalitie 

Pupils from the Elmwood School, East Orange 

Spirits of Spring 
A Dancing Group, Miss Margaret Joralemon, Director 

Spirits or Play 
East Orange High School Pupils, Miss Dorothy HutchinsoE 

Director 

Spirits of Song 

From Children's Community Chorus 

Children's Chorus of 600 voices, trained by Mr. Barnhart an 

Mr. Watson 



Costumes of Choruses and Principals designed and made b 
the Buffalo Community Chorus. 

Costumes of Group Dancers made by members of the Con 
munity Chorus of the Oranges. 

Steinway Piano kindly furnished by the Griffith Piano Co 
605 Broad Street, Newark, N. J. 

Special Music orchestrated by Mr. Frederic Watson. 



SECOND DAY 

Part II 

SOUL OF LIGHT 

Will Irving Pich 

Soul of Light Miss Elizabeth Coc 

Imagination, in Dance and Pantomime . Miss Evangeline Clai 
Accompanied by Ethereal Spirits 

64 



ORANGE PRODUCTION 



Group Person 
In Chanted Speech 

Brotherhood Symbol-Bearer, Theodore Seeley 

Chanters: Men, Women and Children 

IN HAYDN'S "CREATION" 

^^^"^^ I Miss Florence Hinkle, Soprano 

Uriel Mr. Dan Beddoe, Tenor 

^^P^^^^ I Mr. Arthur Middleton, Bass 

COMMUNITY CHORUS OF THE ORANGES 

Orchestra of Selected Musicians 



NOTE TO PEOPLE 

That the Community Chorus has become a valuable asset in the civic 
affairs of the Oranges is unquestioned. During the past three seasons, the 
weekly and largely attended meetings have brought together the people of 
the four Oranges in a truly democratic manner. 

The results of the work of the Chorus have been given freely to the people. 
The Messiah, Creation, and the other good music, with negro melodies and 
old familiar airs, have comprised the programmes of the concerts. 

The members of the Chorus have always been glad to render their services 
in participation in any patriotic endeavor, and Red Cross and Liberty Loan 
Drives and concerts at Camp Merritt have had their enthusiastic support. 

When the war clouds were heaviest, the rehearsals helped to sustain the 
morale of the people at home, and during the summer months, with the gen- 
erous response of some of the prominent and public-spirited men of the 
Oranges, the weekly concerts were enjoyed by thousands in the parks. 

The Community Christmas celebration, where all were asked to attend 
the exercises around a tree, was another evidence of the desire of the Chorus 
to enable all to join in a celebration appropriate to that season. 

It has been suggested that a Community Music Association is the most 
logical solution for the furtherance of Community Chorus growth. 

If the activities of the Chorus must serve a civic need by providing fes- 
tivals and opportunities for gatherings in the summer, singing in the parks, 
Christmas celebrations and Spring Festivals, such a step would seem to be 
of paramount necessity. 

6s 



ORANGE PRODUCTION 



The Community Chorus is a self-governing, democratic organization, 
paying for the running expenses of rehearsals, etc. 

When demonstrating the bigger creative spirit that comes out of singing 
for and with a community at large, we must make some opportunity for all 
the people to share in the expense and creative service. To accomplish this, 
in a proper manner, it would be necessary to make a yearly budget, including 
Spring Festivals, Summer singing in parks and Christmas celebrations, all of 
which should be given free. 

To finance the work, an association could be formed and all subscribers 
become members, subscriptions from 50 cents to large sums being received. 
In considering the plans for a Spring Festival, which is in most part an 
experiment and is now being given indoors in a more intimate way and 
which naturally limits the attendance, it is, however, the first step in some- 
thing bigger, which if given out-of-doors, would be within reach of all the 
people. 

The seating of the auditorium should be laid out in proportion to the 
cost of festival and as in this particular festival the second day is a continua- 
tion of the first day in developing the whole idea, tickets and reservations 
should include both performances. 

Subscribers to the Association should be entitled to tickets in propor- 
tion to amount of subscription, from fifty cents to twenty-five dollars. Any 
amount exceeding cost could go into the Community Music Fund for other 
music purposes and under the control of a Board of Directors. 

For the Spring Festival there should be at least 2,000 subscriptions. 
No tickets should be sold at door, but at a given time all subscribers could 
be notified when tickets were ready for distribution, and obtain them by 
going to a given place and at a given time and making reservations. 

It is absolutely necessary for the higher development of the Community 
Chorus that its work and creative pov/ers be more concretely demonstrated 
to the thinking people and influential citizens of the community. 

Free expression of our art cannot be conducted through common com- 
mercial methods, where personal aggrandizement and monetary gain hamper 
their growth. 

In recommending this idea for conducting festivals it is hoped to make it 
possible for those who really desire to see and hear, to have adequate and 
proper facilities for doing so. This cannot be accomplished upon the old 
basis of financing and selling tickets, but it would give the people of the 
community an opportunity to help and be helped in an expression of love, 
service and beauty. 



66 



PROGRAM OF THE BUFFALO PRODUCTION 



COMMUNITY SPRING FESTIVAL 

The Will of Song 



A Dramatic Service of Community Singing 

ELMWOOD MUSIC HALL 

Monday and Tuesday Evenings, May 26th and 27th 
Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen 

FIRST DAY. 

PART I— SOUL OF EARTH. 

Persons and Participants. 

SOLO PERSONS. 

In Chanted Speech 

Will Irving Pichel 

In Pantomime 
Soul of Earth Ruth Ashley-Smith 

In Dance 

Spring . . Zorilda Riddell, Lauretta Stabell, Dorothy Barmon 

Play Marian Hecht, Dorothy Jones 

Song Betty Leeming 

GROUP PERSONS. 
In Chanted Speech 
LOVE — Symbol-Bearer — Miss Dorothy Sands. Chanters — 
Miss Helen Douglas, Mrs. Chas. Devine, Mrs. Duane Ly- 
man, Mrs. Preston Albro, Luther Graves, George Wilkins, 
Parker Dehn, Irwin Besser, Susan Bass, Marion McNulty, 
Harriett Adams, Evelyn Hillman, Esther Cooley, Ruth 
Alden, Nancy Albright, Elyot Thompson, Frances Davis, 
Phyllis Nichols, Carolyn Shone, Helen Gardner. 

67 



BUFFALO PRODUCTION 



JOY — Symbol-Bearer — Mrs. Stuart Mitchell. Chanters — Mrs. 

Harold Clement, Miss Marian White, Mrs. George More, 
Mr. Stuart Mitchell, Harold Clement, Warren Case, Jean 
Douglass, Martha Hamlin, Natalie Williams, Louise A. 
Hummell, Priscilla Camp, Florence Lyon, Martha Kellogg, 
Betty Hutchinson. 

LIBERTY— Symbol-Bearer— Sydney Stall. Chanters— Mrs. 

Parton Swift, Mrs. E. G. Spaulding, Mrs. Porter Norton, 
Miss Gwendolyn Irwin, Arthur Prouse, Carl Wedell, Albert 
Cohn, Malcolm Barney, Julia James, Doris Dudley, Helen 
Schofield, Katherine Dold, Isabella Russell, Chloe Thomp- 
son, Francesca Wilkes, Jean Ellis. 

Child-Emissaries of Soul of Earth — ^Theresa Parwolska, Fanny 
Lou Barrell, Carmela La Greca. 

In Group Pantomime 

Peoples of Earth by Nationalities 

Spirits of Spring — Mary Walsh, Frances Walsh, Sylvia Starr, 
Annette Frey, Margaret Frye, Elfreda Jessel, Cora Benning, 
Ethel Farnham, Helen Scott, Helen Keichgens. 

Spirits of Play— Ethel Wilcox, Lillias MacDonald, Charlotte 
Risley, Mildred Gardiner, Doretta Smith, Margaret Deihl, 
Viola Krzyzykowska, Bertha Kemp, Mildred Rose, Rosahe 
Parsons, Marjorie Freeman, Agnes Tranter and Viola 
Sparkes. 

Spirits of Song — ^Two hundred children from the Buffalo State 
Normal School; thirty-five children from the Elmwood 
School. 

SECOND DAY. 
PART II— SOUL OF LIGHT. 

Will Irving Pichel 

Soul of Light Mrs. Alfred H. Clark 

Imagination Ellen Becker 

Spirits of Imagination — ^Lillias MacDonald, Dorothy Jones, 
Mary Walsh, Frances Walsh, Zorilda Riddell, Mary Kreig. 
68 



BUFFALO PRODUCTION 



GROUP PERSON 

In Chanted Speech 

BROTHERHOOD— Symbol-Bearer— Malcolm Barney. Chant- 
ers — Mrs. Parton Swift, Mrs. E. G. Spaulding, Miss 
Dorothy Sands, Miss Chloe Thompson, Mrs. Porter Norton, 
Arthur Prouse, Sydney Stall, Irwin Besser, Parker Dehn, 
Dorothy Lipp, Marian Mitchell, Margaret Pooley, Millicent 
White, Katharine Pierce, Doris Silbert, Gladys Lindsay, 
Una Martin, Kathleen Armstrong. 

In Haydn's "CREATION." 

Gabriel (Eve) Miss Florence Hinkle, Soprano 

Uriel Mr. Dan Beddoe, Tenor 

Raphael (Adam) Mr. Arthur Middleton, Bass 

Semi-Chorus — Mrs. Harriet Welch-Spire, Mrs. Edna Luse, 
Mrs. Agnes Preston Storck, Mrs. John Mesmer, Mrs. 
Walter Hawke, Miss Kener, Miss Laetitia Viele, Carl 
Stephan, Charles Mott, Ernest Crimi, Charles McCreary, 
George Barrell, Claude Stephan, Eugene Frey, Louis 
Reynolds. 

Buffalo Community Chorus. 



For the Festival 

Conductor Harry Barnhart 

Action Staged by Irving Pichel 

Technical Director Harold Olmstead 

Accompanists First Night — Miss Eva Rautenburg 

Second Night — Miss Harriet Morgan 
Dances designed and directed by Miss Ellen Becker 
Orchestra of Buffalo Musicians. 



Song has risen out of the hearts of the people. In all parts of 
this land, the American people is beginning to chant together its 
hopes and aspirations. It is like a deep irresistible murmur, 
far off, of the people who have lived before us, who live in us 

69 



BUFFALO PRODUCTION 



today, calling out of ourselves to the people who shall liv 
tomorrow. 

This song is calling forth the heart of a new generation whic 
is now beginning to sing a new hymning. 

HARRY BARNHART. 

The Community Chorus has been in Buffalo now for two and a half year 
We have had regular Saturday nights at Hutchinson High School, Summt 
sings throughout the city, Christmas Festivals, etc. Thousands of peop] 
have been reached and have, we feel, through singing together, experience 
a little better realization of the democracy of the spirit. This past winte 
every Monday night at School 42, in the Black Rock district, represent£ 
tives of many nationalities — Russian, Polish, Czecho-Slovak, Hungariai 
etc., — a large percentage of them being men — have met and sung (in Enj 
lish) together. These evenings have been a convincing testimony to tt 
power of song. 

Opportunities such as this for extending the singing in a city like ours ai 
limitless, and the need is great. 

The Community Chorus in its Saturday night meetings is self-supportini 
For the extension work there must be systematic work, and funds ai 
needed. Our program for the year is 

Community Spring Festival. The festival is not planned primarily as a 
entertainment, but as an opportunity for a community expression in a 
organized art form. It is participated in by at least fifteen hundred peop! 
from every section of Buffalo. 

Summer Outdoor Singing — This includes Saturday Night sings with 
band, which accompaniment is necessary with large crowds, and it ah 
includes smaller neighborhood song-evenings which are practical with 
piano. 

SUMMER SONG PROGRAM IN DELAWARE PARK— A closing night i 
a climax of the sectional sings, carried out by groups from as many groui 
as possible. 

Starting of choruses indoors in new neighborhoods next winter. 

Through the Spring Festival, by a regular seat sale, we undoubted] 
could have realized a large sum of money, but our meetings have alwaj 
been free to the people and we do not want to lose this service of open doc 
opportunity. We are, therefore, this spring asking for subscriptions f( 
our extension work. A voluntary offering will be taken at the close of bot 
evenings. Subscription blanks are with every program, and may be le 
as pledges in the baskets at the time of collection. 



70 



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